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Bellona follows a relatively eccentric orbit through the Solar System's Asteroid Belt. This eccentricity means that its orbit, which takes some 4.6 years to complete, carries it from the outer edge of the belt to a point near its inner extent before travelling outward once again. Bellona's distance from the Sun can therefore vary by some 125 million kilometres (or 0.84 AU).
This asteroid was discovered in 1854, shortly after the outbreak of the Crimean War, and that fact inspired the choice of its name, which comes from a Roman goddess of war. Physically, Bellona is a stony asteroid with a slightly elongated shape, having a estimated mean diameter of 121 km. It rotates on its axis over a period of 15.7 hours.
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